Team AMBR
by The One Beard
Summary: The story of a new team at Beacon and their lives and adventures along side the main crews. (set at the same time as the main RWBY series, with a few changes of course, and naturally some pairings to come)
1. The First Day

' _DAD!'_

' _No mijo, we need to leave.'_

' _But dad….'_

' _It's too late for him, we need to save ourselves…..'_

Brown eyes shoot open, fully separating reality from nightmare. A labored breathing follows as a hand moves up and rubs the sleep out of their eyes. Amarillo Varela stretched out in his seat, making sure not to bump any of the other passengers. After rubbing his eyes again, he looked around where he was, making sure he was still in the real world. As he did this, he made note of all the other passengers, all were roughly his age from the look of it and all wrapped up in their own little groups. Save one or two like Amarillo of course. He sighed and sat up from his seat in the middle of the room, taking advantage of the space there was. He made his way to one of the large window panes on the walls of the room and looked out, seeing out over a very unfamiliar city.

"Vale." He reminded himself. His own voice, a small accented reminder of his home. He smiled as he looked over the city, having only spent a couple minutes in it between coming off the boat from his home to the west, and climbing on board an air ship set to course for one location, Beacon Academy. Amarillo reached a hand to his chest and grasped a circular shaped object through his clothes, very obviously an amulet, and kept smiling.

"This is our best shot at a life mom and dad would be proud of. Let's do this right." He dropped his hand and walked back to his seat, marked by the dark green satchel on the seat. He dropped himself in the seat and leaned his head back, letting out a long exhale. His long coat, though buttoned up the side opened as he sat back, letting his booted feet sprawl out. After a few minutes of sitting like this, he almost fell back asleep but a strange feeling of being watched kept bugging him awake. He opened his eyes and looked around the room, looking for anyone who he might catch watching him. As he scanned the room, he made note of some of the stranger people on board, one guy currently looking about ten seconds from vomiting, a VERY energetic girl bugging some poor guy, a tall blonde girl currently bear hugging a tiny girl who looked too young to be here. Amarillo's scanning soon found him making direct eye contact with a girl sitting on the end of one of the benches further down the room. As soon as Amarillo met her eyes, she snapped her head forward as if she wasn't doing anything. He smiled and almost looked away when something on her head seemingly twitched, and on looking closer, he noticed a pair of animal-like ears on the top of her head.

"A faunus? Interesting." As he looked forward, the news holograms that he had managed to tune out before had all been shut off, and replaced with the holographic visual of a blonde woman wearing a very professional getup, at least until he noticed the flowing cape she was wearing.

"Hello and welcome to Beacon," Amarillo immediately leaned forward, focusing on her just like everyone else onboard, "My name is Glynda Goodwitch, you are among a privileged few who have received the honor of being selected to attend this prestigious academy." Amarillo smiled and grabbed the amulet again.

"Our world is experiencing an incredible time of peace, and as future huntsmen and huntresses, it is your duty to uphold it. You have demonstrated the courage needed for such a task, and now it is our turn to provide you with the knowledge and the training to protect our world." And with that the hologram disappeared and gave the entire cabin a view of the city, causing a lot of the people inside to flock to the windows. Amarillo sat back once more with a smile on his face.

"I guess that means we'll be landing soon." As he said this, the sick looking guy sprinted past him with a hand over his mouth, heading straight for the closest trash can. Amarillo shook his head with a laugh and moved to stand up, grabbing his satchel and throwing it over his shoulder. He patted his sides, checking for his weapon. He nodded to himself when he felt his swords hilt and began walking towards the main door. As he did this, the overhead speakers alerted all the passengers that they would be landing shortly.

A few short minutes later, Amarillo found himself surrounded by all of the other students, even the sickly-looking guy, all waiting to exit. A couple locking sounds and a drawn-out door opening, and the students found themselves staring out at the massive buildings and towers that made up Beacon. Its bright white exteriors made Amarillo shield his eyes a bit as he walked out. The group of students rushed out and immediately several older students wearing little badges started corralling all the new people to one location, but as they started doing this, several people broke off from the main group, including the tall blonde from before.

Amarillo's sightseeing was cut short by a group of older looking students wearing beacons uniforms and lanyards with the words 'student aide' written on the tag. They began funneling the mass of students towards a large circular building, Amarillo getting the best view in the front. He shifted around uncomfortably in the group, not being used to this kind of fancy looking of a place. Amarillo grew up in an almost entirely impoverished area on the coast of Vacuo, the only reason he was here instead of Shade academy was a chance encounter with a rather strange man; tall, bald and wearing what was very clearly clothes from Vale. He had seen Amarillo get involved in what had escalated into a large fight between police, civilans and a local gang, soon after that, the monastery that was caring for him had received a letter, assumedly from the man and soon after that the Abbot sent Amarillo on his way, giving him some lien for the travel.

Amarillo was snapped out of his memory as his groups escorts stopped and began ushering people into the circular building. As he walked In, he took in the full sight. The domed building had no furniture or anything, just a few entrances and exits, some banners and a large stage at the far wall with several people standing on it. The area slowly filled in with students, the soon to be first-years stood in front, closest to the stage, and the years and size of the groups increased as the room filled in. Eventually the other students that Amarillo saw on the air ship joined the group. Amarillo scanned across the crowd, his eyes immediately stopping on the faunus from the air ship looking forward, a small smile making its way onto his face. The smile faded quickly as the faunus' eyes darted to look over at Amarillo, making him immediately look away, and he could feel the smile from across the room.

The mass of students slowly hushed, as did the people on the stage as a two more walked onstage. What looked like an old man wearing a suit and walking with a cane, and a woman dressed officially and with a riding crop in her hand behind her. The man approached a microphone stand at the edge of the stage and coughed a few times, demanding everyones attention, and it was immediately given.

"I'll keep this brief. You have traveled here today in search of knowledge. To hone your craft and acquire new skills, and when you are finished, you will dedicate your life to protecting the people. But I look amongst you and all I see is wasted energy, in need of purpose. Direction.

"You assume knowledge will free you of this, but your time at this school will prove that knowledge can only carry you so far. It is up to you to take the first step." And with that, the old man simply walked off to the side and a few of the others on stage following him, leaving the woman to walk up to the microphone.

"You will gather in the ballroom tonight, tomorrow your initiation begins. Be ready, you are dismissed." As she finished, it finally clicked to Amarillo that the woman on stage was the woman from the air ship hologram, Goodwitch. And after her bit, the rest of the people on stage walked off, leaving the first years once again in the charge of the student aides. The first years being the closest to the stage had to wait while the rest of the students filed out, some greeting the first years as they walked by, others commenting as to why they had to even show up if they weren't the new kids.

Soon after, the first years rejoined the student aides, and the large group of students made their way towards an adjacent building, a square one this time. Amarillo gripped his bag and his necklace as he entered, soon finding himself surrounded by what felt like hundreds of strangers, his time spent in with other orphans immediately making him wary of everyone when it came to his stuff. He walked around and soon found an unoccupied corner and sat his bag down. Amarillo sat on the floor, his head on his bag, and watched all of the other first years, once again spotting the students he had been seeing all day, even the faunus who seemed to be more comfortable in the center of the room, surrounded by everyone. Amarillo slowly shut his eyes, intending to get as much sleep as possible.

"Hey there!" A very loud voice broke his attempt to sleep, and Amarillo slowly cracked his eyes open, seeing a person sitting in front of him wearing a very cheery expression.

"Umm... can I help you?" The guy in front of Amarillo extended his hand to him.

"I'm Fost Reddin, nice to meet you." Amarillo kept eyeing him, as weird as his self-introduction was, he seemed like a straight forward sort, even if he was a bit more than just odd. He reached out and grabbed Fost's hand.

"Amarillo Varela." Amarillo straightened out and sat up, intending to get a better look at Fost. As he sat up, he immediately noticed how small Fost was. His posture was perfect, his back completely straight and head held up, and yet even with all of this, Amarillo sat hunched and against the wall and was still taller than Fost by at least a head. The next weird detail was the guys hair, for some reason it was vibrant pink, and fairly lengthy, falling down the back of his neck and some of it hanging in front of his face. This led to his eyes, a bright blue with a small etch of blind spot in the right eye. Fost didn't move an inch and even seemed to be looking at Amarillo the same way. The last detail that Amarillo made note of was his clothing, even though they looked like pajamas, they were bright white and looked hand made, and very well made on top of that. A crest of a shield and an 'R' was embroidered on the breast of the shirt.

"I'm sorry if I was a bit forward, you looked like you needed a bit of company over here." Amarillo shot Fost a look of 'that was the point' and he laughed a little.

"Your accent is a bit unfamiliar, where abouts are you from? You can't be from Vale that's for certain." Amarillo gave a small laugh at the questioning, being reminded of the other children at his home.

"Vacuo, more specifically a coast city on the south end." Fost smiled, seemingly entertained by the conversation.

"And you? From the look of it, you are certainly more well off than everyone around here." Amarillo looked over the rest of the room, until his eyes fell on a girl wearing almost similar white pajamas currently in argument with the young girl from the airship ride. "Well most everyone." Fost looked to where Amarillo was currently staring, and saw the girl as well. They both looked back at each other. Fost wore more of a look surprise than anything else.

"Its that easy to tell huh? I'm from Atlas, everyone in my family was trained here at Beacon, I'm continuing the tradition." Fost smiled, and as he finished the sentence, the lights around the ballroom started to be put out, signaling everyone to finally go to bed. He stood up over Amarillo, who for sure now could see that Fost was almost a foot shorter than him, and gave him a quick nod.

"Well Amarillo of Vacuo, I look forward to seeing what you can do tomorrow." He motioned to the sword next to Amarillo, and without another word, he walked off to his bed roll. Amarillo smiled and laid his head back on his pack.

"What a weird place." Amarillo murmured to himself with a smile as he slowly drifted off to sleep.


	2. We have takeoff

_'What do you mean missing?'_

 _'As in gone, we've searched everywhere!'_

 _'Well keep looking, for his sake...'_

 _A door slams, leaving the second voice alone._

 _'First his Father and now a missing mother, I feel terrible for the poor child...'_

Amarillo woke with a jump, his eyes shooting open and darting around the room. He was back in Beacon, in the ballroom, on the floor. He reached up and felt for the amulet around his neck, his heart calming much faster knowing it was still there. Amarillo laid there, motionless and holding his amulet, a gift from his Abbot.

After a few minutes, Amarillo sat up, propping his back against the wall. He took this time to look around the room, noticing there were only a few students left in the room, those that were still there were busy packing up clothes and bedrolls and such. One student however seemed to be looking at Amarillo with concerned eyes. The faunus from the air ship, she seemed to be trying to figure out what was going on with him as she packed, looking over constantly.

Amarillos concentration on the faunus was swiftly broken by the ever excellent timing of his new pink haired acquaintance, who dropped down right in front of Amarillo, wielding two plates stacked high with pancakes.

"Wow, barely a day and already crushing. Nice." Fost placed one of the plates in front of Amarillo and began digging into his pancakes. Amarillo moved to try and see the faunus but she was already on her way out. He sighed and rubbed the rest of the sleep out of his eyes. Then looked to the stack of hot cakes.

"You should probably eat up quick, our turn for initiation starts soon, and you still have some things to put in your locker before we head out." Amarillo looked over at his pack, the sword neatly balanced on the side. He shook his head with a laugh and began eating. The two ate in silence for a few minutes, downing the fresh pancakes in no time. They stacked the plates and placed them on the nearest trash bin, thinking that would be the easiest place to spot them. Amarillo slung his pack over his shoulder and grabbed his sword.

"C'mon, we cant be late!" It was at this point, Amarillo finally noticed Fost's change of clothes. Instead of his bright white night clothes, he wore almost military looking gear. A pale grey shirt with the left sleeve going down to his palm and the right side looking like a tank top, a pair of black cargo pants and black boots. He looked like a completely different person. However, this change in appearance didn't change his attitude at all, he seemed to be bouncing off the walls in excitement, but trying to contain it with a strange professionalism.

The two made their way across the schools campus, to what looked like a large gym of sorts. As they walked up to it, Fost turned around and while walking backwards beamed at Amarillo.

"I forgot to ask, what's your locker number?" Amarillo reached over his shoulder to his pack, digging in one of the smaller pockets. He eventually fished out a small sheet that he had gotten on the airship ride in a packet before he fell asleep.

"Uhh, locker 248... you?" He looked up from the paper to see a sad expression on the smaller students face.

"383.. Damn it." He spun around on his heels to face the up coming doors, leaving Amarillo to laugh to himself at his dramatics. The two of them pushed open the double doors and walked in, surprised at the near emptiness of the building. Amarillos surprise extended with the fact that there were only lockers in the entire building. He looked over to Fost but he was already heading off to one of the lockers further in. Amarillo shook his head and began looking around at the locker numbers, the first locker closest to the door was labeled '101', leading Amarillo to walk further in. After passing locker after locker, He eventually found the 200's and even other students, specifically however, the weird ones Amarillo had been seeing since yesterday. The tall blonde and the little brunette in red, the sickly blonde guy who now seemed to be passing up and down the halls, the energetic girl and the tired guy she clung too on the air ship and the girl in white from last night that Amarillo had seen yelling at the girl in red. There were two new faces that he hadn't seen yet.

The first was a girl with bright red hair, and wearing what looked like armor Amarillo had seen in a comic book or something, with a crown and all. He felt the need to sarcastically bow to her as he passed her, but held it in. The next was a guy wearing what looked like a trench coat, about the same length as Amarillos coat. He had close cut black hair and bright green eyes, and pulled what looked like two guns out of his locker, slipping them into his coat. He simply walked past Amarillo with out a word, but shot him a smile and a nod instead.

Amarillo soon after found his locker, just a few down from the brunettes, and as he began preparing his equipment, he couldn't help but to hear the others conversation.

"Wonder what those two are so excited about?" The brunette questioned as the excited and tired couple walked past them.

"Oh who knows, anyways, you seem awfully chipper this morning." The blonde spun around and crossed her arms. The brunette let out a little giggle, causing Amarillo to smile a bit.

"Yep! No more awkward small talk or getting to know you stuff. Today, I get to let my sweetheart do the talking." She pulled out a metal object from the locker, probably about half her size and the same bright red as her clothes.

"Preaching to the choir here, hermana." Amarillo couldn't help but say out loud as he finished dumping his stuff in the locker and pulling the sword, sheath and all from the pile. He looked over in time to see the brunette and the blonde staring at him, but the brunette broke the awkwardness with a huge thumbs up and a smile.

"See I knew you could make more friends Ruby, but you guys have to remember that you're not the only ones going through initiation," The blonde thumbed over to the others "If you want to grow up, you've got to learn to interact and WORK with new people." The last sentence seemed pointed at Ruby.

Both Amarillo and Ruby looked over at the rest of the students. Ruby let out a long groan and clanged the metal object back in her locker.

"Ugh! You sound like dad! Ok, first of all, what does meeting people have to do with fighting. And secondly, I don't need people to help me grow up, I drink milk!" Ruby threw her hair back with a dramatic flair on the word milk, making Amarillo laugh again.

"The blonde's right you know, you may be a good fighter on your own, but you'll be a whole 'nother level if you can work with people." Ruby slumped her shoulders down and groaned again, turning and putting her head in her locker.

"Thank you, I'm just trying to help my sister break out of her shell. I'm Yang by the way, the stubborn one here is Ruby." Amarillo had to do a double take on the word sister, looking back and forth between the two of them.

"Riiiight, sisters." Ruby turned around, having finally caught up in the conversation.

"What do you mean break out of my shell, that's absolutely ridiculous." She started flailing her arms at Yang, who put up her hands defensively.

"Whoa, whoa, cool your jets there sis. I'm just saying it'll help for when we form teams." Amarillo stood up, having secured his sword to his waist and looked at the two, just now realizing that Yang being tall was a bit of an understatement, she actually stood barely and inch or two below him. He was about to speak up when the sickly blonde walked by talking to himself about counting to high numbers or something. As he walked past, Amarillo noticed the similar features of Fost approaching, except even more had changed about him. His left arm was now covered in what looked like a full steel plate arm cover and he was carrying a large Warhammer with a large red gem in the striking head of it.

"There you are! This place is bigger than it seems." Fost walked up happily to the group, but only received a wide eyed stare from the three at his weapon of choice, standing an easy foot and half over its small wielder. Ruby Especially seemed to be starting to drool over his weapon. Yang noticed this and immediately grabbed the metal thing from Rubys locker and began shoving her away to the door.

"Anyways, Ill see you guys at initiation." She shoved her sister the metal object and waved at Amarillo and Fost. They both watched them go, but Fost seemed especially focused on Yang as she left, even looking at the door after words. Amarillo immediately noticed this and stifled a laugh, gaining Fosts attention.

"Barely a day in and already crushing huh?" Fosts eyes squinted at his tall friend, glaring at him. Amarillo stopped slowly stopped laughing and looked over at the remaining few in the room. The blonde guy seemed to be hitting on both the girls with obvious failing results.

"Would all remaining first year students please report to Beacon cliff for initiation. Again, all remaining first year students please report to Beacon cliff for initiation." Both Fost and Amarillo looked at each other than up and around, looking for the speaker when a thud drew their attention back to the remaining students. The sight made Fost immediately move forward to help but cause Amarillo to fully bust out laughing. From the look of it, the red head had pinned the guy to one of the walls with a spear through his jacket. As the two walked off, the red head reached her hand out and the spear dislodged from the wall and flew into her hand, and as Fost walked up, it sounded like she was apologizing or something before walking off.

"That looked fun." Fost reached a hand out to the poor guy who now sat slumped against the wall. Amarillo had finally stopped laughing enough to walk over and help him as well.

"I don't know what I did wrong, my dad always told me the one thing women want in a guy is confidence." Fost easily hefted him to his feet, even with the size difference, catching him a bit off guard.

"Well you may want to lay off the gas there, pinche idiota."Amarillo ruffled his hair as he walked past, leaving both Fost and the blonde watching him as he left.

"What did he mean by that?" The guy asked out loud, looking back over at Fost.

"He meant, maybe don't go all out with just the confidence. Names Fost by the way." He extended his hand out, which the blonde grabbed and shook.

"Jaune Ark. Thanks" Fost let go of the handshake, then looked around, seeing they were completely alone now.

"We should probably run if we don't want to be late." Jaune nodded in agreement and the two bolted for the door.

They sprinted across the school, seemingly reaching the cliff in record time, however Amarillo was already there, close to the far end of a line of students, all facing over the cliff. Fost and Jaune broke off, with Fost heading for the far end of the line and Jaune on the opposite end. As they walked into line, they noticed that they stepped onto square metal plates in the ground, each giving just a bit as they stood on them. Jaune soon after noticed that he chose the spot right in front of three people.

The man in the suit from the stage who now had a mug instead of a cane, who all the new students came to find out was Professor Ozpin, the headmaster of Beacon.  
A woman in professional clothing with a flowing purple cape and a tablet looking object, Miss Goodwitch.  
And a man wearing a large pea coat, and bald with gazing brown eyes. None of the students knew him, but Amarillo had immediately recognized him as the reason he was at Beacon.

"Now that we're all here, We can begin," He took a small sip of his drink before continuing, "For years, you have trained to become warriors, and today your abilities will be evaluated in the Emerald Forest." Amarillo and Fost took a moment to look down the line at everyone; to his left was Fost, his right was the guy in the trench coat from the locker room, two students he hadn't even seen before, then between them and the bunch he had ran into in the locker room was the Faunus, now that she was closer and in broad daylight, he could clearly see her. Short cut brown hair with small circular ears on top, looking like a sort of bears, and pale green eyes. Her clothes looked fairly standard; jeans, black shirt and brown jacket, her weapon however looked far from standard. A large shield, covering from the back of her neck to the top of her rear end and with lines painted on, separating the shield into fourths.

"Now I'm sure many of you have heard rumors about the assignment of teams, well allow us to clear up some of that confusion. Each of you will be assigned team mates. Today." The feeling of uneasiness could be felt off of some of the students as Goodwitch said this.

"These team mates will be with you for the rest of your time here at Beacon, so it is in your best interest to be paired with someone with whom you work well." Ozpin continued, adding too the unease of the students.

"That being said, the first person you make eye contact with after landing will be your partner for the next four years." This immediately received reactions from everyone in the group, especially Ruby.

"They ain't fucking around I guess." Amarillo whispered to Fost, receiving a chuckle and a shrug from the small student. Everyone looked back to Ozpin who then continued his speech.

"After you partner up, make your way to the northern end of the forest. You will meet opposition on your way, do not hesitate to destroy them, or you will die." A few of the students went a bit wide eyed at this, Amarillo included. Some were of excitement, the others were nervousness. Amarillo was unfortunately in the latter. He expected to find grimm in the forest, and he has always hated fighting them.

"You will be monitored and graded for the duration of your initiation," As Ozpin said this, he looked over at the two standing next to him. Goodwitch simply nodded and the bald man drew a small screened tablet from out of his coat pocket and waved it at the group. "But our instructors will not intervene."

"You will find an abandoned temple at the end of the path, containing several relics. Each pair must choose one and return to the top of the cliff. We will regard that item, as well as your standing, and grade you appropriately." He looked over the dead silent group. "Any questions?"

"Umm sir, I have a question." Ozpin ignored the attempt at a question from Jaune, "Good! Now, take your positions." The rest of the group, save Jaune and Amarillo readied themselves, some crouching down on their platforms, others simply readying their weapons. Amarillo looked over at Fost, in time to hear a clicking sound from his platform.

"Good luck Amarillo, hopefully I'll see you down there." As he finished his sentence, the platform shot up, launching the small man with the big hammer soaring into the sky. Amarillo was visibly surprised by this but his surprise and nervousness multiplied as he heard his own platform start to click.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit." He crouched down to the platform, attempting to cobble some kind of plan together. As he did, his platform shuddered and he found himself feeling weightless. He cracked his eyes open to see the tops of the trees below him shooting by.

"SHIT!" He yelled out as he flew. He started going through everything in his mind to slow his flight. He slowly spread his arms and legs, trying to take up as much room as possible. Amarillo found that this was helping him slow his flight but also found that now he was falling down, and fast. His eyes widened as the trees approached, he tried his best to huddle and closed his eyes, hoping it would help. His last thought as he almost hit tree was 'how the fuck is this gonna help?'

 **-Fost-**

Soaring through the air, Fost immediately dug into all of the tips on what to do in this situation, given to him by his brothers mostly. He let his limbs go out, slowing his speed and descent. As he flew, he spun himself around, wanting to see the others. He looked in time to see Jaune, the last person in line, get launched into the sky flailing. He also saw who could assume was Amarillo falling a lot faster than he should've been, curling up into a ball and bombing straight into the trees. As Fost watched this, he almost forgot that he was falling as well, and spun around, and just in time to grab onto a tree trunk with his armored hand, spinning around it.

He stood on the top branches and watched as the other students landed, safely for the most part, Jaune managed to get something long chasing him as he dipped into the tree line. Fost looked back and forth between where he thought Amarillo had bombed into the trees, and towards the north. He did this for a solid minute before taking a deep breath.

"I'm sorry Amarillo, I'll grab the artifacts real quick and come back for you, I promise." Fost slid down the tree trunk and landed with a thud, and soon he was sprinting north.


	3. Into the woods

Small tremors rock the area, alerting a pair of green eyes to search around for any nearby threat. A revolver in his hands at the ready, hammer cocked back and fully loaded. He kept ready for a few more moments before eventually relaxing once more, slowly easing the hammer of his gun forward.

He slipped the gun into the holster underneath his trench coat, taking a moment to figure out where that tremor came from if he could. He soon realized that it had to be something on the surface since there was a discernable direction of the tremor. He looked from where he figured north was and where the tremor came from and shrugged to himself. He began walking towards the direction of the tremors, pushing his way through some of the brush and trees in the way.

After walking for a few minutes, he felt like he might have just been imagining things, thinking he was feeling things that weren't even there. That was until he shoved his way through the final bit of branches to see something he honestly had no clue to expect.

He found himself in an area with no trees, at least none that were standing, all of the trees had been blasted apart, even some trunks were uprooted. As he looked towards the center of the area, he saw that there was actually a crater that made up the center area. He almost ran to it but hesitated when he saw something black shoot up from the crater and land just a few feet in front of him. He didn't have to think twice when it landed, he pulled one of the guns from its holster and aimed it at the black mass in front of him and cocked the hammer back. Now that it wasn't air born, he could see the white plates and spikes with the distinctive red coloring of a grimm.

It struggled to recover from its fall, but eventually stood up. As it did so, he saw that it was a small Beowulf, but injured or not, a grimm is still dangerous so he kept his gun on it. It moved to go back to the crater but stopped and sniffed the air, and slowly it turned to him, turning its burning red gaze onto him. He didn't hesitate as he squeezed the trigger, letting the bullet fly out with a thunderous BOOM. It quickly covered the short distance and found its target in the grimms showing eye. The bullet tore through, blasting all that was the beowulfs head away from him; fur, blood, bone and plates sprayed back as the grimm fell. He felt a sudden relief as the monster died, but as soon as it left, the suspense grew back as a loud roar echoed from the crater.

He immediately drew his other revolver in the other hand, cocking the hammer back and taking aim at the crater. As he did, several more black masses shot up out of the crater, one far larger than the others. A voice called out from the crater after them.

"Vete a la chingada!" One final mass shot out of the crater, followed shortly by a familiar looking guy climbing out of the crater, looking very pissed off. The two made eye contact and the one that just climbed out of the crater, Amarillo, knew him as the trench coat from the locker room. Each opened their mouths to say something but a growling drew their attention away to the grimm, who now were mostly recovered and staring at the two students, hatred in their eyes, and the larger mass stood over the rest and glared down at Amarillo as if claiming to the rest that he was their kill. Amarillos grip tightened around his gladius, a short, wide bladed sword, as he stared right back. The pack of beowulfs diverged, leaving the smaller ones to out number the trench coat and the obvious alpha to take on Amarillo.

"Names Fitt by the way, partner." Amarillo never broke the gave with the Beowulf, not letting his guard down.

"Introductions later, right now, I'm really pissed off and need to let off some steam." Fitt laughed as he twirled his guns on his fingers, stopping them to point at the group of small beowulfs in front of him, where his new partner had a one on one, he counted him versus at least eight to nine. He cocked the hammers back and stood silently, waiting for them to move. He didn't have to wait long as both the pack and the alpha charged as one. Fitt opened fire on the group, the first two bullets finding their marks, blasting into a beowulfs mouth, shattering the plates on their faces and launching them back with a spray of blood. Fitt began walking forward, still firing as the grimm charged. Two more shots rang out, the first landing square on the nearest beowulfs face plate, causing it to recoil and allowing the second shot to hit the soft fur of its underbelly. As the grimm fell, Fitt counted down out loud, moving backwards from nine.

"Seven." He said after nailing another shot to one of the beowulfs eyes, killing it instantly. By now the grimm had reached Fitt and began their attacks, swipes and bites and pounces. All of which Fitt was moving out of the way, some narrowly missing and one even giving the bottom of his coat a new opening. While he dodged and counter attacked, taking them down one at a time, the alpha had finally crossed the distance to reach the unmoving Amarillo.

As it reached his massive claw up to try and stamp out the swordsman as quickly as possible, it found its claw hit thin air and dust as Amarillo deftly moved to the side, still staring it down. It attempted a follow up with the other claw and managed to hit something, only a small chuckle from its prey met it though as it found four of its clawed fingers falling off and Amarillo once again moved to the side and his sword raised as if he had just swiped with it. The alpha stumbled back, allowing Fitt to glimpse their fight for a moment, genuinely surprised that Amarillo was doing so well going one on one with an alpha and with just a plain sword. That was until he saw what looked like an almost jittering, moving and near invisible edge to the sword. His concentration broke as another Beowulf of the five remaining swiped and caught the side of his head, his aura managing keeping the his head on his neck but barely filtering the pain as he stumbled and tried to shake dizziness from his head, a small stream of red flowing from a gash on his temple. He looked up to see two of the Beowulf pounce at the same time, intending to finish him. Fitt moved to bring his guns up but everything seemed to move in slow motion as he realized he wouldn't make it in time, and as if an angel had seen his plight, a burst of rose petals surrounded him and a pair of booted feet slammed into the left beowulfs face, sending it into the other and launching them away.

Fitt blinked a couple times as he stood up, the dizziness finally leaving and he looked down at his rose tinted savior; small, brunette, red and black clothes and wielding a massive red scythe.

"Are you alright?" Her high pitched voice cleared through the ringing in Fitts ears as he nodded to her. Ruby smiled at him and looked back at the remaining Beowulf, all five stood in between them and the crater where Amarillo and the alpha still fought. Fitt glanced down at his guns, a single bullet in each gun, he smiled and aimed them at the Beowulf. All five charged at once, causing the two to take a step back and making Fitt fire his last two bullets, causing two of the five to collapse in their charge. The two students braced themselves to counter the charge when a white figure sprinted past them, almost sliding across the ground, it stabbed the ground with a rapier and a cylinder in the guard spun to the color blue. A blast of ice erupted forward. spreading up from the ground, catching the three remaining Beowulf and holding them in place for another spike of ice to shoot up and through their chests, instantly killing them. Fitt looked at the other new fighter, a pale girl wearing all white with bright white hair, a small scar running over one of her eyes.

"You need to stop running headlong into everything you idiot." She stared coldly at Ruby. Once again, Fitt opened his mouth to say something but the sudden roar from the alpha drew everyone's attention, the alpha charged once more, throwing its all at Amarillo, who dodged almost all but the final hit of the alphas frenzy of attacks. Its final swipe, aimed for Amarillos mid-section, made contact with his sword. Using the full force of its swing, Amarillo spun himself around, switching his place with the alphas and opening its back to him. He stepped back and readied his sword to swipe, even when the Beowulf had stumbled out of the swords range. Amarillo, in front of the others, swung his weapon, the blade nowhere near the alpha. However the alpha threw its head back as if it had been hit and its blood sprayed out of a massive horizontal wound on its back, nearly spraying the sword wielder. It collapsed in a heap, leaving the four students surrounded by bodies and in silence for several minutes.

"Well that was new." Fitt finally spoke, believing the danger had passed and that it was safe for him to speak. As he said this, Amarillo collapsed against the dirt hill of the crater, exhausted. The three ran over to him, Ruby reaching him first and immediately falling to the ground next to him. Before the questions started, he held up his hand with the index finger held up, asking for a moment. He continued taking several deep breaths before letting his hand drop.

"Are you alright?" Ruby yelled out before the others opened their mouths, making the exhausted student smile. He nodded, his breathing eventually slowing down and he began to stand up slowly, shrugging off everyones hands as he stood up. Fitts hand stayed out, his face hoping for a handshake, which he soon got from his new partner.

"Amarillo Varelo, nice to meet you Fitt." Ruby and the other girl looked over at Fitt and saw the wide smile he had. The gash on his temple had been patched up by his aura but the blood that escaped was still there.

"Brakus Fitt. That's my full name." Fitt let go of the handshake and looked over at his two saviors with the same smile.

"And what should I call the two guardian angels who saved me?" He shifted his gaze at the two girls next to them with a smile still. The girl in white turned her head in a sort of disgust, while Ruby simply giggled at the others discomfort.

"If you must know, My name is Weiss Schnee, of the Schnee dust company." She turned her head away from Fitt again after introducing herself.

"My names Ruby." The small brunette extended her hand to Fitt, which he eagerly shook. Amarillo took the time to look around, trying to gain his bearings while the others conversed. He spun in a circle, trying to see through or over the trees, eventually finding the cliff where he was launched from, and from there discerned proper north from their location. He looked back to the group, seeing Fitt and Ruby happily talking but his eyes locked with the steely gaze from Weiss. He raised an eyebrow at the girl in white, and acting as if that was her cue, she walked straight over, her upbringing showing clearly in her walk, her posture and the way her face seemingly formed the perfect resting bitch face. It reminded Amarillo exactly of Fost, if he was taller and less friendly looking. She stepped right up to him, her eyes leveling right at his shoulder. The two stood that way for a second, Weiss' cold glare meeting the confused look of Amarillos.

"Just how, if I may ask, did you manage to take down an alpha, _alone?_ " Amarillo's eyes widened at Weiss' sudden questioning, especially with what felt like an angry tone to her voice. Even Ruby and Fitt's conversation was silenced when they heard Weiss. Amarillo tried to think of a way to explain how little even he knew about his abilities. What he wound saying wasn't remotely close to what he wanted.

"How? I'm stronger than it, why? jealous?" He leaned down to Weiss' eye level as he said this, and he saw the immediate effects, and instantly regretted his habit of sassing people. Weiss' pale face began heating up with a pinkish hue as the taunt somehow stuck. Amarillo wanted to high five and slap himself at the same time, but got the chance for neither when he felt a finger solidly poking his chest.

"Alphas can prove a challenge for trained and experienced hunters, clearly neither of which you are, and on top of that, you killed the damn thing with out touching it. So I'll ask again, how?" Ruby and Fitt began moving towards them on hearing Weiss' break in composure, but stopped in their tracks when they saw Amarillo close his eyes and start to extend his hand to Weiss.

"Listen idiota, we don't have much time, I can explain everything I know on the way to the temple if you want to come with us. That's the best I can give. Deal?" Weiss stared at Amarillo for several seconds before slowly taking his hand and shaking, causing the taller student to smile in relief. The handshake broke and Weiss began looking around, taking a note from Amarillo and trying to get a hold of her directions and surroundings.

Amarillo looked at the other two of their group, who were simply staring in amazement at how smoothly things had just turned out. Amarillo laughed at his companions expressions, and sheathed his sword with a solid click. The rest of the group followed suit, Rubys scythe folding neatly into its form that Amarillo had originally seen in the locker room. Brakus however pressed a button on both of his revolvers, letting the barrels and cylinders fall forward on hinges. He emptied the used casings and rolled the empty cylinders under one of the several rows of bullets underneath his trench coat, fully reloading them. He snapped both shut at the same time and holstered them, taking all of about three seconds to do all of this.

"Impressive." Amarillo couldn't help but to comment out loud, Ruby on the other hand seemed to almost be drooling over his guns, especially as he flawlessly pulled off his routine with them. Both of the guys laughed at the small brunettes expression, unfortunately snapping her out of her state. She blushed a bit and scratched the back of her head in embarrassment.

"This way!" Weiss yelled out, pointing in the direction towards the opposite of the clearing, following parallel to the cliff. As the group looked at her though, both Brakus and Amarillo face palmed, almost loud enough to be heard by everyone in the forest. Weiss turned around at the noise in confusion, seeing Brakus still holding his head and Amarillo looking her dead in the eyes. He forked a thumb behind him, almost the exact opposite of where Weiss was pointing.

"North is yonder, princesa." Ruby stifled a laugh, and looked back and forth from Amarillo and Weiss. The latter of the two began walking towards the group and in the right direction.

"Shut up..."

- **Fost** -

Fost broke through another dense cluster of bush, the branches scratching at any exposed skin and scraping against the steel plate of his armor. He had been running like this for about five minutes, trying to cover as much ground as possible. Fost slowed his pace, moving to a jog to save his energy in case of a fight. He was feeling more and more on edge however, as the entire time he has spent in the forest, he hasn't heard or seen any sign of grimm or student. His thoughts shifted to concern for his new friend, given that the last he had seen of Amarillo was him cannonballing into the forest at top speed.

Fost slowed down even more, continuing to think of Amarillo, He was good at reading people and he could tell Amarillo was a good guy. Someone he could rely on, trust, know to have his back. Fost, stuck in his mind, soon found himself in a clearing, open blue sky above him. He looked around, trying to find anyone or anything nearby. As he did this, a snapping sound echoed from the forest behind him. He spun around, readying his hammer and pointing the spiked bottom at the tree line.

He stood like this for a few moments, completely motionless and lowered breathing, all of his original training from Atlas showing. Several birds shot out of the tree tops, signaling that something was coming. Another snapping sound, like whatever it was breaking the branches straight off the trees. A silhouette slowly came into view, obscured by the trees and lack of light in the forest. Fost could see that it was rounded, large and fast, and now heading straight for him. His grip tensed on his hammer as it closed in. It was only a few seconds away now, and Fost slowly lowered himself to ready for any attack.

It broke the tree line with a massive leap, easily flying over Fost, but the sunlight clearly showed what it was, even before it landed. A huge shield, bronzed with four segments being held out from the center by what looked like several rods. As it flew over, Fost saw the driving force behind it, seeing the faunus with the round bear ears from the cliff. She landed with a thud behind him, the shield slamming together again with loud clangs. She stood up and turned to face Fost, her body just as tensed as his. The two stared at each other for several seconds until the faunus started smiling and letting out a relieved breath. Fost relaxed as well, letting a smile break through the pink hair on his face. He stood up fully as well, also standing just a few inches shorter than the faunus, and moved the hammer over his shoulder.

"Guess we're partners now huh?" She slipped the shield onto a pair of small hooks on her back.

"Fost Reddin. Nice to meet you." He gave a small bow to the faunus, who kept smiling and even gave a small laugh at the bow.

"Nadora Mei. Pleasure to meet you too." She moved towards Fost to stop his bowing, when a low rumble reached the two students. Nadoras face paled as a realization hit her, and she immediately began backing towards the opposite tree line.

"Fost... We need to get going now." Fost gave her a very confused and turned around, facing the forest where the rumbling was coming from.

"Hey, what ever it is, I'm sure that two hunters can take it right?" Her face kept the pale expression even as Fost tried to calm her. The rumbling grew louder, and seemed to have small gaps where the rumbling stopped, almost like footsteps. Nadora stopped backing up but still held her clear fear of what approached, Fost on the other hand seemed ready to take the challenge. He readied himself again, aiming the spiked end towards the trees. His new partner reluctantly pulled her shield from her back, keeping it in one solid piece. They held their ground while the rumbling grew, slowly changing into a massive pounding sound, scaring the birds from their trees. Fost lowered himself to the ground when he saw a huge silhouette shoving its way past some of the trees. It moved around and seemed to stop as it looked in the hunters direction. Then with a speed that made Fost take several steps back, making him stand next to Mei. The two watched at the silhouette closed the distance in seconds, its arm swinging around and causing several rows of tree to seemingly explode.

The silhouette stepped forward into the daylight, making Fosts jaw drop. It was very clearly a grimm, it had the distinctive black, white and red colors, but that's where Fosts knowledge ended. This grimm stepped out from the tree line, now missing most of its trees, on all fours and pushed itself up onto its rear legs, the bones in the hip clicking as they repositioned. Its height reaching the top of the trees and it stared down at Nadora and Fost. Three glowing red eyes stared out from its face, a strange mix of human and boar. Red lines ran up from the eyes to its back where a large white plate covered most of its back. The lines ran over the plate and split out to the four limbs, all tracing along the grimms natural armor covering its shoulders, elbows, hands, knees and feet. Its skin was the normal pitch black that grimm have, except this one looked leathery and tough.

Fost was ready to make his move when he noticed something in its right hand, some thing large. A tree, this grimm was smart enough to use weapons! Fost looked over at his partner who shared his expression of fear. The beast let out a monstrous roar, causing the hunters to flinch in pain, and Nadora started backing up to the forest.

"It can't move very fast when its standing like that, RUN!" She immediately spun and booked it into the forest, leaving a conflicted and fearful Fost alone. The grimm raised its club, intending to crush the small hunter. His instincts kicked in and he quickly side stepped out of the way, letting the club smash into the ground and the leaving the grimm bent over with its head at the perfect position. He readied his Warhammer, twisting part of the shaft and causing the gem in the head to flare up violently. The grimm looked over at him in time to receive a literal explosive slam to its face, causing Fost to slide back with the shockwave. The grimm stayed unmoving as Fost recovered, he looked to the smoke covered body with hope that he took it out. His hope was quickly crushed however as the body began moving, pushing itself upright again, the grimms three eyes boring holes down at Fost. Its jaw, the point of impact from Fosts hammer, was lodged far off to the left. The creature seemed to stress to open its mouth. As it did, the jaw slowly snapped back into place, and the grimm let out another roar at Fost. His eyes widened and his pulse raced at the sight of a grimm ignoring all pain and damage that it seemed to take. He backed up a few feet before looking to the tree line his partner ran through.

"Fuck...Mei! Wait up!" He yelled out as he sprinted through the tree lines, being chased by another roar of the grimm.


	4. Ruins and Relics

**-Cliffside-**

Two men stood at the edge of the cliff overlooking The Emerald Forest, each holding a small tablet with several video feeds. Each completely engrossed in their tablets, they failed to notice the third person approaching them.

"It looks like the final pair has been formed sir," Glynda Goodwitch took her spot between the two men, addressing Ozpin to her left. "Nora Valkyrie and Lie Ren, poor boy, I can't possibly imagine those two getting along." The Bald man let out a laugh as he flipped through the video feeds of the students.

"At least the girl seems to enjoy being around him, that's a good start for them, can't say the same for some of the other pairs." His loud voice making Glynda scowl a bit, but hated to admit that he had a point.

"Still, He's probably better off than miss Nykos," This earned an interested 'hmm' from Ozpin, "I don't care what his transcripts say, that Jaune fellow is not ready for this level of combat." The bald man let out another small laugh, but Glynda continued on to finish her report, tapping the screen and closing the video feeds.

"I guess we'll find out soon enough, at their current pace, they should be reaching the temple in just a few minutes." She turned and began making her way back to the school. The bald man, tapping his screen and closing it down, turned and followed Goodwitch's lead.

"Speaking of which, what did you use as relics this year?" Glynda turned to their headmaster, but not receiving a response. The bald man also turned when he didn't hear anything, sharing a confused look with Glynda.

"Professor Ozpin?" Ozpin continued to stare at his screen, focusing intently on the group that harbored his silver eyed student.

"Lets leave him be, you know as well as I do, there's no breaking his little trances. We'll meet you back at the school Professor." The two turned away from the headmaster and left, allowing the grey haired man to observe the students in peace.

- **Fost and Mei-**

After a minute or two of straight sprinting, Fost slowly lost the roaring and chasing rumble of the giant grimm from the clearing. Eventually he was alone in the forest, no monsters or people or even animals at this point. Just silence. He stood still, leaning on his hammer and catching his breath. A branch snapping behind him immediately made the hairs on his neck stand on end. He swung his hammer up, intending to skewer whatever it was with the spike on the bottom.

He stabbed forward before fully turning his, the fear from before coming up as he moved. A scream echoed out as the spike hit, but Fosts expression turned horrified as he saw what it was, and saw the spike of his hammer embedded in the shoulder of Mei, the spike perfectly fitting through one of the gaps of the shield. He pulled the spike out and chucked the hammer, letting it slam against a nearby tree. Mei stumbled back a bit in pain and leaned against the trunk of a tree, a small amount of blood making its way out of the open wound, her aura however was managing to keep most of it in.

"Oh shit, oh shit. I'm so sorry, I...I...I didn't know it was you, I was just scared and... and..." A hand raised up to silence the stuttering apologies. Fost, even though he was on the brink of tears for hurting his partner like this, managed to quiet his voice enough for Mei, who surprisingly wore a smile.

"Fost, hey, calm down. Please don't cry, I'll be fine. Look." She hovered the non-injured sides hand over the open wound, a bit more blood escaping with her movement and staining part of her clothes. A soft golden glow flowed between her hand and the wound, and before Fosts eyes, the wound began rapidly closing up, far faster than any aura he had seen heal before. By the time she moved her hand again, the wound had completely closed, not leaving a single trace of the ever having been one in the first place, except the hole in the jacket. Fost could only stare in astonishment at what had just happened, making the girl laugh at his slack jawed expression.

"I've never been the strongest in anything really, I don't even have that strong of an aura. My strength is in my semblance, I'm able to focus my aura, or move and take some of others, I use it to heal wounds that auras would have trouble with, even wounds like that aren't uncommon. I just can't do it all the time, just that took a pretty sizable chunk to heal." With a another laugh, she moved to stand up. Fost moved to help her, threading an arm under hers and helping her stand.

"Still, I didn't know, I just moved to kill, if it weren't for your shield, I probably would have succeeded in that." Mei managed to stand on her own after walking a few feet with Fosts help. He grabbed his hammer and helped her mount her shield to her back.

"To be honest, that thing is mostly meant to fight grimm, not other hunters. Ill probably have to work on that." She scratched the back of her head in embarrassment.

"As long as you avoid fighting other hunters, it shouldn't be much of a problem." He slowly began walking north, with Mei following closely. He kept an eye on her and kept ready to help just in case, but eased up as Mei showed no signs of the wound slowing her down. She only seemed to have labored breathing from the exhaustion from healing. A slow rumbling from behind them made them pick up their pace as they progressed north. Soon after, they reached a clearing, much larger than the one before, and this time with what looked like a dilapidated marble ruin at the far end. Both Mei and Fost looked at each other in excitement and they both sprinted to the ruin. As they approached they spotted two other students at the ruin already, a tall girl with black hair in a big bow and Yang, who Fost remembered from the locker room. They slowed their pace as they got closer, the four students all wearing large smiles.

Fost immediately approached the two, letting Mei look around the ruin.

"Hey there pinkie, long time no see huh?" Fost stopped in his tracks in surprise at the nickname, especially from someone he had hardly met.

"Sorry, figured that would work since I never got your name." Yang smiled and held out her hand, a large gold and red bracelet hanging off of it.

"I'm Yang, this is Blake, and you two are?" Fost reached to take her hand, giving it a firm shake while Mei looked over the half circle of pedestals, each with black or gold chess pieces.

"Fost! I think these are the relics we're supposed to grab!" Yang and Fost broke the hand shake when Mei yelled, the three students turning around and looking over at the faunus. She turned around holding a black rook piece. Fost shot her a thumbs up and big smile as she pocketed the piece.

"Well, I'm Fost, that's Nadora." The pink haired student finished up their introduction, and just in time as a screeching sound could be heard by all four above them, they all turned to see Jaune currently airborne and screaming. He arced across the open field and landed with a loud thud in a nearby tree, leaving the four others completely dumbfounded.

"What... was... that?" Mei spoke up, getting a collective 'I have no idea' from the others. Fost moved to check on Jaune when the combined sounds of trees crashing, monster noises and explosions made the group look across the field and see what looked like an ursa flailing around. Another boom went off, this time with a bright pink explosion hitting the ursa in the back, making it keel forward, and revealing a girl about Fosts height riding it to the ground and giving a loud 'Yee-haw'.

She rolled forward off the ursa and looked back it, and seemingly teleported back onto it, looking around. A few seconds later, an out of breath man stepped out from behind the ursa, leaning on it to catch his breath as he tried to speak to the girl. He looked up and even to the rest of the groups surprise, the girl had managed to go from on top of the ursa, across the field and behind the group staring at the golden rook piece. She picked it up and immediately started dancing around with it chanting that she was queen of the castle.

"NORA!" The guy yelled out at her as he made his way over. Nora giggled and pocketed her artifact, giggling.

"Coming Ren!" She happily skipped over to him, leaving the original four staring.

"Did that girl just ride in on an ursa?" Blake asked out loud, the others couldn't answer, only stare. The moment was once again broken as a shrill screech echoed from the woods, causing everyone to once again look to the tree line to see the red head girl from the locker room being chased by a deathstalker, a massive scorpion grimm. As she ran, she managed to jump and duck around several swipes from the death stalker. Jaune struggled in the tree as he watched, yelling out to her.

"Did she just run all this way with a deathstalker on her tail?" The first to finally react, and possibly over react, was Yang as she angrily groaned out loud, her eyes turning red and small explosion started going off around her. Fost and Mei immediately jumped back. Nora, Blake and now Ren didn't seem to fazed by it somehow.

"Could everyone just chill out before something crazy happens again?" A growing rumbling started to build as she said this, making her drop her head in exhaustion but also causing Mei and Fosts faces to go pale. They turned to the direction they had come from as the rumbling grew more. Jaune had managed to unstick himself from the tree and now stood on its branches looking over the group, waving.

"Hey, is everyone alright down there?" Fost immediately turned and started yelling.

"JAUNE, GET DOWN!" As he yelled, the rumbling had gotten bad enough to cause the group to shake a bit, even giving the deathstalker pause, allowing the red head to catch up to the group. Jaune opened his mouth to respond but was cut off as the tree he stood on, as a whole, was uprooted like so many others around it and the massive ogre-like grim broke through the tree line. Jaune, now airborne again, only screamed as his tree flew. He was flung and landed roughly on his side, a small crack could be heard by the rest of the group as he groaned on the ground. Both the red head and Mei rushed to him, leaving the rest of the group to stare at the new threat. Mei stuck her hand out, hovering it a few inches from his chest and closed her eyes. A soft golden glow flowed out from her hand over Jaunes chest, a small popping sound came from his chest as what was once at least to broken ribs was now a perfectly fine set. Both Jaune and the red head stared in surprise at Mei, who looked close to passing out as she stood up and moved to the rest of the group.

"What the hell is that?" Yang asked Fost, clenching her fists and causing the bracelets to expand into gauntlets.

"I have no idea, I only that it can tank a lot of damage." Fost responded, both hands clenching the hammer. The grimm now moved itself up, straightening it back and causing its legs to pop into their new location. Now bi-pedal and still armed with its club, it stared forward at the group, its presence even intimidating the deathstalker, who gave the new grimm a wide berth.

"Well great, at least we can all die together now." Yang commented as everyone drew their weapons. Everything stood still for what felt like hours, waiting for one another to make the first move. A yelling in the forest broke to stagnation, as a blur of red and black shot out, leaving behind rose petals as it flew. Yangs eyes widened as she immediately knew who it was.

"Ruby!" The blur sped forward, flying straight at the deathstalker. As it closed in, the form of Ruby became more visible, and the scythe in her hands also became more visible. It swung around, finding its mark in the deathstalkers face but the blade was easily deflected by the plates of armor. She attempted to regain her footing but was knocked to the side by one of its claws. Yang darted forward, trying to save her sister, but as she did, the ogre-like grimm roared and charged the students, quickly closing the distance. Everyone braced as it swung at Yang, only to miss as she slid under the makeshift club. She kept sprinting to her sister, who had attempted to escape but now was pinned by the massive claw of the deathstalker. It reared its tail to finish off the young girl, making it very clear that Yang wasn't going to make it in time. But as it stabbed down, several bodies broke the tree line. One broke off and ran to the other students, a guy in a brown duster coat holding two guns. The other two ran straight to ruby, the faster one, a guy in a weird green long coat slammed into the deathstalker, making it lose its grip on Ruby. The second, a girl in all white stabbed her weapon into the ground, causing a massive ice wall to shoot up and trap the deathstalkers tail. Ruby slowly opened her eyes to see the stinger barely a couple inches from her face, she looked up to see both Weiss and Amarillo standing between her and the deathstalker.

"You are so childish. And dim-witted, and hyperactive, and don't even get me started on your fighting style. And I suppose I can be a bit difficult, but if we're going to do this, we're going to have to do this together. So if you quit trying to show off, I'll be...nicer." Amarillo moved around and offered hand to Ruby.

"I'm not trying to show off, I want you to know I can do this." She slowly reached up to grab Amarillos hand.

"You're fine." Weiss stepped away, walking to the rest of the group. Ruby could only smile as Amarillo hoisted her up, smiling at her.

"You alright hermana? You're looking a little flush there." He motioned at her blushing face, Ruby immediately batted his hand away, making him laugh and walk away. She turned and was slammed into a bear hug by an almost in tears Yang.

"I'm so happy you're ok!" They both smiled but the sounds of battle drew their attention away to the ruin. The ogre grimm was being hammered with everything the group had and was still standing and fighting. Even with the extra help, it still was hardly showing any sign of injury. Its slow attacking was easy enough for the students to dodge but it was clear that this was an uphill fight. As Ruby and Yang ran to rejoin, Mei and Blake stepped back to catch them up to speed.

"No matter what we do, this thing isn't slowing down, its just absorbing everything!" Ruby took a second to watch the fight and the other three could see the light bulb go off in her head.

"If we can get it off its feet, we may have enough time to get away." Mei looked to the grimm and back at Ruby with the same look of enlightenment. She looked down at her shield and slid a finger along the inside, causing the shield to separate further, with a light pull the shield split into two halves. She smiled and nodded at Ruby, handed a shield half to Blake and the two ran back into the fight. After a few seconds, the two had taken up a position behind the grimm, holding the shields close to the ground. Yang, catching on to the tactic ran forward.

"Fost, Nora, follow my lead!" The hammer wielders broke off and fell in behind Yang, who bull rushed to ogre at top speed. She launched forward, slamming her fist up into its chin, two hammers slammed on either side of her fist and at once, all three let off a massive explosion, enough to send the ogre stepping back and dazed. As it stepped, both Mei and Blake ran forward, ramming the shield halves into its already unbalanced legs, sweeping them forward and knocking the ogre onto its back, letting it roll around almost as a turtle would.

As the team backed up from the ogre, everyone reconvened, making sure to keep an eye on the rolling giant. As they congratulated each other, a loud shriek bellowed out from above them, they all looked up to see a massive winged grimm, a nevermore, as it began circling the group.

"Seriously!?" Yang yelled out, her eyes almost flicking back to red again.

"The fighting must've disturbed its nest or something." Brakus hypothesized, rubbing his chin.

"Look, there's no sense in dilly-dallying, our objective is right in front of us." She motioned to the chess pieces.

"She's right. Our mission to grab an artifact and make it back to the cliffs. There's no point in fighting these things." Ruby finished, her and Weiss sharing a smile and a nod.

"Run and live, that is an idea I can get behind!" With that, the remaining duos stepped up and grabbed their artifacts, a golden rook for Jaune, a golden knight for Ruby and a black rook for Amarillo. Once they finished, the sound of Weiss' ice wall beginning to crack brought everyone back to reality.

"Its time we left!" Ren yelled out. As they all pocketed the artifacts an began moving to the cliffs of Beacon, the sounds of struggle could be heard from the grimm, not wanting to lose their prey. But that slowly faded out, leaving just the sound of the students foot falls and the occasional wing beat of the nevermore above them.


	5. Students Last Stand

The group sprinted through the woods, making their way back to the cliffs of beacon as fast as they could. They broke through branch after branch, bush after bush until they eventually broke a treeline, finding themselves in another ruin. Several pillars and flat roof like stones made a path leading to a massive temple looking ruin bridging a large chasm to the cliffs that border Beacon.

"There it is! Not much farther! We can do this!" Ruby kept sprinting, not noticing that two of their group had stopped in their tracks. Brakus and Ren both stood at the edge of the forest, staring into the sky, then at each other with the same look of confusion.

"You notice that too?" Ren nodded and looked around again, more of the group slowed down to look back at the two.

"How long ago did the Nevermore stop chasing?" Brakus looked to the tree line and focused hard on the shadows deep in it.

"I can't hear any of the other grimm either, they wouldn't give up that easily would they?" Ren shook his head, knowing full well that something was wrong. At this point, almost the whole group had stopped, concerned about their friends. Except Ruby, who in her eagerness had kept running, reaching the lone standing bridge that connected her side to the cliff. She barely set foot on the bridge when a loud screech broke everyone's stupor and they all looked up to see the fast approaching shape of the large Nevermore, diving straight at Ruby, seeing the chance to claim easy prey.

"Ruby, get back!" Yang and Weiss immediately screamed out to the small girl, but she barely had time to look up as the Nevermore collided into the bridge, taking both it and Ruby into the chasm. All the rest of the group could see was the blur of black and white seemingly drag the red cloak down, leaving a screaming Yang making a full sprint to the bridge, making the rest of the group follow.

"Where the hell was it! We should have seen it coming a mile away!" Brakus yelled, keeping an eye on the tree line.

"It must have hid somewhere out of our view, in clouds maybe? Sun against its back so it could see us but not the other way around?" Before Brakus could respond to Ren, another screeching sound was heard, but from both in front and behind the group. Yang had made it to the edge of the chasm, falling to her knees to look over the edge but was thrown back by the force of the Nevermore launching itself out. She jumped to her feet, her bracelets extending over her forearms and hands, and immediately began firing at the Nevermore, her eyes turning red in anger. Weiss and Blake following up behind her and opening fire on the big bird. The rest of the group were still catching up when a loud crash drew the groups attention to the forest as the Deathstalker tore through the trees.

"These things just don't want to give up don't they?" Jaune groaned as he readied his shield.

"Que mierda... They've got us trapped." Amarillo drew his sword, holding it at his side. The group all prepared their arms, ready to move as the Deathstalker approached. A loud roar echoed out, making the blood drain from most of the groups faces. The Deathstalker skidded to a halt, leaving a trail of dug out dirt. The group became confused, as the nevermore began circling the group. A slow, rhythmic thudding sound emanated from the forest, signaling the coming of the third and final grimm. It tore through the tree line, uprooting several of the trees, and almost plowing into the deathstalker before it too skidded to a halt and pushed itself up onto its hind legs and standing fully upright, a bright red glow coming from its eyes, beaming its anger straight at the group of students. Its middle eye on its forehead shot a look up in the sky, and almost immediately, the nevermore tucked its wings and dived straight at the teams, shrugging off all the blows it was taking from the constant fire it took. As it approached, the students firing at it noticed something moving on its back, something red. And as soon as they noticed this, a flash of something metallic reflected the sun from the nevermores back and slammed into the giant bird, causing it to screech out in pain and veer off course, slamming into the ground, shaking the whole group.

The nevermore tried to shamble back to its feet when a streak of red shot out from behind it and slamming into one of its outstretched wings, effectively clipping and grounding it. The streak of red shoved itself away from the nevermore towards the group, leaving a trail of rose petals as it flew. Yang shoved her way through the group and tackled straight into the streak, pulling the now fully visible Ruby to the ground with her, crying the whole way. Ruby, now visibly wounded from the nevermore and being tackled by her sister, tried her best to shove Yang off. With most of the groups attention split between the return of Ruby and the Grimm, now all in front of them, the large grimm with the club let out a couple grunt and motioned with the club in its hand at the deathstalker. It began pacing around the group, working its way to flank the students.

"Yang, Ruby. Sorry to interrupt but we're gonna be needing your help here." Pyrrah spoke up, not breaking from her stance. The sister stood up and dusted themselves off, Ruby giving a groan of pain and grabbed at her leg. A large gash and long streak of blood now visible on her thigh. Fost looked over at Mei and gave her a quick nod, she responded in kind and began moving towards Ruby. The sudden movement sparked the interest of the deathstalker and now had it barreling towards the group, followed by the thunderous movement of the giant grimm. The students braced themselves as the grimm charged, Mei now sprinting towards Ruby. She reached the younger girl by the time the deathstalker reached the group.

"Get down!" Mei split her shield in two, planting the heavy spikes that held the shield together into the ground between Ruby and the deathstalker, right as one of its claws swung down at them and slamming into the shield.

"Nows our chance! Go!" Jaune yelled out and charged forward, followed by the rest of the group. The students split into two, one surrounding the deathstalker, and the other sprinting around it to cut off the larger grimms charge. The first group of Jaune, Pyrrah, Ren, Nora, and Yang all collided against the deathstalker at once, pushing it back and away from Nadora and Ruby. The second group charged full speed at the larger grimm, Blake and Amarillo barely diving out of the way as its clubs slammed into the ground. Using this chance, Fost sprinted up the large tree trunk and swinging his hammer with as much force he could muster. The grimms eyes seemed to widen in surprise as the hammer collided with the side of its head, forcing it to take a couple steps back, still holding onto the club. Upon seeing the opening, Brakus and Blake began to open fire on the unarmored underside of the grimm, causing it to roar out and begin swinging wildly at the group.

Meanwhile, behind the safety of a hunkered down shield, Nadora, with both her hands hovering over the open wound on rubys leg, focused as hard as she could on the wound, leaving Ruby to watch either her friends fight grimm or this girl she hadn't met yet seemingly space out at her. However, as that thought came to Ruby, a small glow began emanating from Nadoras hands and flowing into Rubys leg. As the glowing seemed to grow, Nadoras breathing slowly starts getting heavier and more labored. Ruby watched in amazement as whatever Nadora was doing was healing the wound faster, but also seemed to make Ruby feel stronger bit by bit. After a couple more seconds, the glowing stopped and Nadora collapsed against the shield half in the ground. Ruby shuffled towards her, concern on her face.

"How did you do that?" Nadora only smiled and waved Ruby away, straining to stand.

"I gave you most of my Aura, to heal yourself faster. Its temporary of course but now you have the same strength as the both of us." Nadora picked her shield up from out of the ground and looked over at Ruby, a small smile of her face. Ruby smiled back at the exhausted girl and looked over at the grimm and focused on her sister, taking several steps forward. Her leg still finishing up the healing, making her limp for the first few steps but soon her full strength had returned and Ruby felt her strength keep growing more and more. She smiled and began sprinting, crescent rose in hand, and jumped forward. Her speed having increased from the boost to her aura, and further increasing from her firing her rifle, she soared over Yangs head and slashed at the deathstalkers body, quickly finding herself on the other side of the grimm. She turned and saw that she had managed to slice a large gash across the entire head of the deathstalker, a small amount of black blood now flowing out of it. She looked at the others who were fighting it and all had taken a moment to simply stare at the girl with the scythe. Now with the assistance of Ruby, began forcing the deathstalker towards the chasm.

Nadora, still exhausted, made her way over to the other group fighting the large grimm, who was still swinging around at the students currently surrounding it.

"Nothing we're doing is working on this thing!" Blake yelled out as her weapons clicked, the magazine now empty. She shifted her stance, the blade moving upright and she dashed forward at the grimm. Nadora stepped up next to Brakus, he lowered his weapons and taking a chance to look over the grimm.

"You don't suppose its hiding its weakness do you?" Nadora chimed in through her breaths, causing Brakus to look at her out of curiosity then her idea made sense to him. He looked back at the grimm, focusing intently on it. Nadora watching him, saw a small change in his left eye, and upon looking a bit closer, saw that the iris in his eye had actually changed shape into the form of a crosshair. His eye moved all over the grimm, his vision focusing solely on it, the color drained from his vision, and a small almost heartbeat like feeling seemed to echo out from the grimm, dead center in it chest from where Brakus stood. His eyes slowly opened in realization, and he looked down at the faunus girl with the massive shield.

"You're a genius! Amarillo!" Brakus shouted out to his partner, who just barely ducking under another club swing. He looked back and saw Brakus circling around to the backside of the grimm and followed, meeting him around the back of the grimm. The both of them staring at the heavily armored back of the grimm, and Amarillo stared over at Brakus.

"What's your plan, hombre." Brakus pointed with his gun barrel at the middle of the armor plating.

"Think you can get through that like you did with the alpha?" Amarillo looked between Brakus and the grimm and thought for a second.

"I'll give it a shot." With sword in hand, Amarillo sprinted forward, focusing intently on the spot Brakus pointed him to. He leapt through the air and swung his sword, putting as much force as he could. As the sword collided with plate, Amarillo seemed to hold in place for a second, and to Brakus, his form seemed to shift and shutter, just like with the alpha. The blade of his sword barely scratching at first, now cleaving into the plate, a thin translucent layer forming around the sword, shuttering the same as Amarillo. As he finished his swing, he propelled himself back by kicking off the grimm, causing it to step forward and move to swing back at the airborne Amarillo. As it turned its body with the swing, Fost saw the massive slice left by Amarillo and seizing the opportunity, twisted the handle of the hammer and slammed the ground behind him, launching him forward and upward. As he crested the arc towards the grimm, he looked to his left and saw the energetic girl from the other group also airborne and launching herself towards the deathestalkers detached stinger currently embedded in the open wound left by Ruby, she looked over and the two shot each other a smirk as they propelled towards their targets. Fost aiming the spear point of his hammer and found its purchase, dead center of the cut.

The grimm roared out in pain as Fost rammed the handle of the weapon in the wound. The grimms swing still followed through however, as Amarillo barely had time to ready himself for the blow and was launched into the trunk of another tree, almost being sent through it. He coughed a couple of times, a small amount of blood coming up. Amarillos vision blurred for a second before sharpening again, seeing Fost flail around and hanging on to the grimms back with his hammer pierced into it. The grimm with enough shaking however managed to reach behind it and grab a hold of Fosts leg and slam him into the ground in front of it. Amarillos eyes widened as he saw what was happening, the grimm raising its club, Fost looking stunned but reaching for his armor plated arm. Amarillo felt a sudden surge through him, one that he's only felt maybe once or twice in his life in moments like this. His vision snapped to the hammer in the grimms back, and he burst forward, splintering the already damaged tree behind him with the force of him pushing himself off of it. He closed the distance in a matter of seconds, surprising the group as they watched this blur from go from tree line to the grimm in the blink of an eye. Amarillo jumped and slammed his bare fist into the warhammer, shoving it through the armor, then what felt like an entire other persons force exerted from his body to his fist on the hammer and slammed it into the grimm, shattering the plate on its back and piercing all the way through the grimm, the spear tip now through its chest.

The grimm, letting one last groan of effort before falling forward, dropping the club and falling straight towards Fost. Fost let go off his armor and held out both hands, attempting to brace against the grimm, and with a boom, they made contact. The group watched stunned as Amarillo rolled forward, rolling over the grimms head and landing on his feet. He let out a long breath of exhaustion as the rest of the students ran to the scene. Most of the students going to roll the grimm off of Fost, while Brakus, Nadora and Weiss approached Amarillo with looks of amazement, concern and curiosity respectively. Amarillo looked up at the three in front of him, making them reel back in surprise, as they saw Amarillos entire pupil and iris had seemingly duplicated in his eyes, making it look like he had two in each. As his confusion set in, the eyes returned to normal, the iris slowly combining back into one. The color drained from his face as he nearly collapsed forward, being caught by his partner, who looked at Nadora and Weiss and motioned for them to help Fost.

They each gave a nod but as they moved to help with the large grimms body, a shift in the body made everyone jump back and reach for their weapons. A second shift made everyone tense up further as the body moved, arching its back as if it was beginning to stand up. But the arms and head never moved, only the back arching. Soon enough with a loud grunt of effort, the body was shoved over to the side, almost colliding with half of the students. Everyone looked in and saw, now moving to stand in a small indent from the weight of the grimm, with skin now resembling that of the steel plating on his arm, was Fost who stared at everyone staring at him. There was several seconds before anyone said anything, but it was eventually Fost who spoke up, the steel of his mouth moving as if it was still his regular skin.

"What?" The group of students still staring at him, only Nadora stepping forward. She placed her hand on his shoulder, feeling the cold steel underneath Fosts shirt. As she looked him over, the steel skin receded, moving from right to left and into the steel plate armor. Nadora lifted her hand away as she felt the unnatural transition from solid steel to simple flesh, a small shudder moving through her. Fost gave a small apologetic smile to her and looked around at the rest of the group.

"You alright down there?" Fost turned and saw Brakus holding a pale and bruised but smiling Amarillo. He smiled and nodded, giving a quick glance at the giant grimm and spotting his hammer embedded in its back. Giving an exasperated sigh, Fost moved to start climbing the grimm, mounting its back and tugging on the hammer head.

A low pained growling sound drew the rest of the groups attention away from the scene in front of them to the still breathing nevermore behind Brakus and Amarillo. Yangs eyes flared to red as she turned to it, her gauntlets still out from the fight. She immediately stomped over to the massive bird, rearing back her fist and with an echoing crack, finished the wounded monster.

"Nobody hurts my sister." She whispered to herself before taking several breaths, calming herself down. Fost slowly but surely pulled his hammer free of the grimm, the handle sliding out covered in blackened blood and chips of white plate and bone. Fost gave a few disgusted flicks of the weapon before grabbing it by the handle and jumping down from the grimm. Taking a spot next to his partner and, like the rest of the group, now looking at the collapsed bridge and the towering cliff to safety, the group taking a breath and now moving to cross the chasm and climb the cliff.

After about an hour of leaping, climbing and throwing, the group as a whole found their way to the top of the cliff, and one by one collapsed on the soft grass of the clifftop. A small clapping from the trees drew the attention of most of the students, as they saw two people walk out from the trees. One of them being Glynda Goodwitch, Ozpins assistant from before and the one clapping was the bald man from before they all launched into the woods.

"Good job everyone! Took you long enough." The bald man smiled at them all warmly, his eyes focusing especially on Amarillo and Ruby.

"Yes, congratulations to you all, but there is one last thing that must be done before you all can rest." A chorus of groans from the students made the bald man smile again and laugh.

"You all still have those relics correct?" One by one, the partners produced their relics to the approval of the teachers. After giving the students enough time to breath and correct themselves, the two teachers began escorting the groups back to Beacon.


	6. Team AMBR

A thunderous applause echoed out from the stage building as a newly formed team of four walked offstage, Professor Ozpin smiling as they walked away.

Amarillo clapped along, not really paying much attention, to the other teams being formed. Their whole squad of students was broken up into three separate groups of four upon arriving at the building. He looked down the line at his group; Brakus, his partner, and Fost and Nadora, his new friends. Behind him, huddled in their own group was Jaune, Pyrrah, Nora and Ren, all happily talking amongst themselves. Behind them, at the back of the line of groups, was Ruby and Weiss in their group. Ruby, looking around at everything as well, locked eyes with Amarillo and each gave the other a warm smile, and another round of applause rang out. Snapping Amarillo back to the stage.

He clapped along as the group walks off the stage, the next group walks up, four guys in armor, not all that much different from one another, Amarillo thought to himself. His eyes began wandering again as Ozpin started talking, this time looking over the crowd of older students. His attention fell on a curious, crouched over girl dead center in front of the stage. She was wearing the normal student uniform, in her hands was a camera snapping several pictures of the newly formed teams, and the most striking detail to Amarillo were the pair of large rabbit ears poking out from her long brown hair. As the next round of applause began, the girl stood and began clapping, a genuine smile on her face. She looked over and made eye contact with Amarillo, she looked for a couple seconds then turned away and began fumbling with her camera to get it ready.

A stiff elbow to his side brought him back to reality as the rest of his group was already making their way up to the stage, Brakus now in front of Amarillo with a look of confusion. Amarillo smiled and shook his head as the two caught up the short distance and stood in front of Ozpin, perfectly in a row.

"Amarillo Varela, Nadora Mei, Brakus Fitt, Fost Reddin. You four retrieved the black rook pieces. From this day forward, you shall work together as team AMBR. Lead by Amarillo Varela." Fost, Brakus and Nadora all looked at Amarillo with smiles, only to be met with a confused look on Amarillo. A hand on his shoulder from Nadora calmed him down a bit, enough to walk offstage with the crowd giving them their applause.

As they turned around and began walking offstage, they walked past the next group with Jaune in front, each of them giving congratulations and thumbs up. AMBR moved away from the stage and stood next to the last group. Amarillo getting several thumbs up and smiles from Ruby and Yang.

"Jaune Arc, Lie Ren, Pyrrah Nikos, Nora Valkyrie. The four of you retrieved the white rook pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as team JNPR." Nora immediately jumped on Ren in a hug. "Led by Jaune Arc." For the first time, Amarillo genuinely joined in the applause, Jaune looked behind at the other groups with a look of concern, only to get cut off by a happy shoulder punch from Pyrrah, knocking him down. He scrambled up as the crowd, including most of AMBR, couldn't help but laugh. JNPR moved to walk off stage, walking by Ruby and her group, and standing by AMBR. The two groups swapping congratulations with each other and leaving Amarillo looking up at the last group.

"And finally, Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, and Yang Xiao Long. The four of you retrieved the white knight pieces. From this day forward, you will work together as team RWBY, led by Ruby Rose." One last round applause rings out, with JNPR and AMBR cheering their friends the loudest. Yang moves around her group and picks up her sister in another bear hug before they move offstage and joining AMBR and JNPR.

"It looks as though things are shaping up to be an interesting year. Thank you all and good luck to all of our newest students." Ozpin clapped for the several new teams. He moves to exit the stage as Glynda takes his spot on the stage and looks over to the new students.

"You'll find all of your personal belongings have already been moved to your rooms, as well as scrolls for each of you. Congratulations and good luck." Spinning on her heel, Glynda walked offstage, following Ozpin. And with that, the collection of students dispersed. AMBR, JNPR, and RWBY all began happily talking amongst each other, all trading high fives and such, except Amarillo who found himself looking back at the faunus girl with the camera again. She was already on her way towards the entrance of the building, placing the camera in a small box attached to her hip.

"Hey, I'll be right back." Amarillo said to the group over his shoulder, not even looking back as he made his way towards the crowd of students walking through the large entrance. Several confused looks from the teams followed him as he walked forward, Fost began following soon after, curious about what had gotten his friends attention.

"Just meet us outside the dorm building alright?" A nod and smile from Fost gave the teams their answer as they began filtering into the crowd to leave. Amarillo was the first to exit the building and began looking around, having a noticeably hard time finding someone with large rabbit ears poking out of their head. His attention focused as he finally spotted the pair of ears and brown hair making its way through the crowd, eventually stopping at one of the many fountains around the school. As Amarillo made his way through, the students slowly parted, all heading in their own directions. All except the faunus girl who now sat at the edge of the fountain, camera in hand, looking at the backside of it and smiling to herself.

Amarillo thought to himself for several seconds as he looked on, before shaking his head and moving forward. As he approached, he continued thinking about what he would do, but soon found himself a couple feet away and the girl still stared at the camera, not looking up once. Deciding to say something first, Amarillo leaned down and slowly waved a hand behind the camera, but the sudden appearance of a hand in her vision had the opposite effect, causing her to jump in surprise, and just enough to make the camera slip from her grip.

As it sailed away from her, her eyes slowly widened in panic and she began scrambling like mad to grab at it. However, in her surprised state, she was just slow enough to barely miss the camera, and watched in horror as it seemed like it was doomed to crash against the stone walkway. But right in front of her, a tan skinned hand deftly caught the camera, a couple inches from the ground.

"Sorry, didn't mean to try and break your stuff." His nervous voice breaking into a stronger than usual accent as he held the camera out for her. The girls eyes went from sorrowful to gleeful in a matter of seconds as she stepped up from the fountain with a small smile and gently took the camera back.

"That's alright, I should probably learn to pay more attention to my surroundings. I kind of get absorbed in the pictures I take." She gave the camera a quick once over before placing it back in its box. Amarillo couldn't help but smile at the faunus girl, and now that they were face to face, he was able to take in all the details of her. Large, brown eyes, with the same colored bangs falling over them. A fair bit shorter than him, but the ears more than made up for that.

"Well regardless, sorry for surprising you. I saw you taking pictures and guess I wanted to say hi." Amarillo gave a warm smile, and to his surprise, got the same in return, albeit more shyly, with her face pointed more towards the ground.

"You're Amarillo right? AMBR's leader right?" Amarillo found himself slightly distracted by the girls accent, but shook his head again to focus. He looked back at the girl only to see a confused look in return.

"No? I could have sworn I got that right. Sorry." She looked down at the ground, making Amarillo hold up his hand again.

"Oh no, no, I am Amarillo. Sorry. What's your name though?" The girl looked back up, slight relief on her face and the small smile back again.

"My names..."

"VELVET!" A higher sounding voice called out from across the other side of the fountain, grabbing first the girls then Amarillos attention. A girl, standing somewhere around Rubys height was waving over in their direction, behind her was two guys, one with reddish hair and weirdly white eyes and one, even from Amarillos view, was almost absurdly tall and with close cut black hair. The faunus now named Velvet waved back then turned to Amarillo.

"Sorry, that's my team, I gotta go. Congratulations again and good luck, I hope you like it here." Velvet dashed off around the fountain and joined up with her group, leaving Amarillo alone, looking on as they left.

"Yeah, I think I will." Amarillo found himself smiling again, and not noticing the new presence to his right, at least until he felt a jabbing elbow into his side. His eyes shot over and down at his pink haired friend, who now wore the most smug expression.

"Barely a day in and already crushing huh?" Fosts mocking voice made Amarillos smile disappear immediately.

"Hijo de perra. Lets go already." Fost gave Amarillo another smile before spinning around and waving for the taller student to follow him.

"The other are probably waiting for us, c'mon." After a few short minutes, the two found themselves approaching one of the dorm buildings, this one for first year students. With sun well on its way down for the day, the three teams wasted no time in making their way inside. The outside of the building actually gave very little indication to the size of the inside, halls and halls of rooms, each equally spaced and separated and three stories up to allow a room for every team of students. A desk of two older looking students wearing similar badges to the ones when everyone first arrived flagged the teams down and brought them over.

"Hi there, you guys new students right?" A bright eyed blonde girl sitting behind the desk smiled at the younger teens. She opened up a large binder book and began flipping through pages.

"Team names?" She looked expectantly at the group.

"Team RWBY reporting for dorm duty!" Ruby stepped forward and gave a very over the top salute, getting a chuckle from her team, except Weiss, who simply rolled her eyes.

"RWBY, Rwby, rwby... ah! There you are. Third floor, room 13. Your door will already be unlocked for you, your scrolls are your keys to come and go from here on out." She smiled at the team as they stepped by for the others.

"Uh, team JNPR?" Jaune uncomfortably stepped up, but no page flipping from the girl, she looked down and gave a surprised look.

"Room 14, you guys are neighbors! Same goes for you, just don't forget your scroll, and you'll never have a problem." Amarillo stepped up next to Jaune, bumping shoulders and giving him a smile.

"Team AMBR." The girl behind the desk looks at the book for a few seconds before flipping back a page then giving a knowing 'ah' expression.

"You guys are on the second floor, room 4." She looked up with a smile.

"Doors unlocked already? Don't forget our scrolls?" Brakus spoke up, shooting the girl a joking smile. She simply rolled her eyes and nodded, still smiling. Nadora shoved Brakus before heading off for the closest stair case, followed closely by everyone else. At the break for the second and third floors, AMBR gave their goodbyes for the day, most of them giving their new friends hugs with Fost constantly picking up the others in weirdly proportioned bear hugs, Amarillo and Brakus settling for nods and handshakes.

Walking down the rows and rows of rooms, AMBR eventually found their room, just a few steps from another stair case and from looking over the main entry hall. Fost burst into the room, and immediately began looking around, leaving the others to walk in after. Nadora immediately walked over to her bags and began rifling through them, double checking everything.

"Brakus, come check out the bathroom, there's actually a lot of room in here!" Fosts voice shouted out from the open of two doors, coaxing him to walk over, on the way stripping the duster coat off and throwing it on the closest bed.

"Dibs." He mumbled as he walked in, joining Fost in the bathroom.

"One hell of a team huh?" Amarillo, currently busy looking in the other door in the room, leading to a spacious closet, looked out and saw Nadora smiling at him. Her round faunus ears drooping against her hair, and the tiredness in her eyes very much apparent. Amarillo chuckled and nodded in agreement, closing the doors and dropping himself on the one of four beds closest to the closet.

"I've been meaning to ask," Nadora looked over at her teammate curiously, "What kind of faunus are you?"

"I would've guessed the strength and ear shape gave it away, I'm a bear." She gave a smile at Amarillo then grabbed a bundle of night clothes from her bag and walking over to the bathroom.

"Out with you! I need to change!" Both of the boys in the bathroom immediately stepped out, giving Nadora the bathroom as they moved to begin rifling through their bags. A small buzzing from everyones bags peaked their interest as they began looting their bags. Each of them pulling a small white rectangular objects from their bags.

"Oh right, our scrolls." Fost tapped the yellow diamond shape in the center of the rectangle and popped open the screen, opening it to a home screen and flopping down on his bed closest to the bathroom. Meanwhile, taking the opportunity with their only female team member in the bathroom, both Brakus and Amarillo began stripping down and getting ready for bed as well. Settling for simply wearing just pants, Brakus settled down on the bed next to Fost, who looked away from his scroll at him, only to snap away to his scroll again, a small blush on his cheeks quickly receding.

"Damn, you're right Fost, that bathrooms roomy." Nadora stepping out of the bathroom, now changed into simple bed clothes and carrying her now bloodstained combat outfit and stuffing it in her bag. Amarillo, not even noticing her walk out, continued changing into a simple pair of pants and shirt, making sure to never take off the medallion he constantly wore. With the rest of the team finally settling in for the night, Fost collapsed the scroll and looked over at the rest of his team, trying to avoid the shirtless Brakus.

"Well guys, you ready for day one as team AMBR?" A laugh from Nadora made the guys look over at her curiously.

"Not in the slightest, but I'm guessing I'm not alone in that?" A couple chuckles and 'mmhmm's in response caused the bear girl to laugh again.

"Guess that makes me feel better then. Goodnight guys." After a few minutes, the team was sound asleep, all except for Amarillo who lay in bed clutching the medallion, tracing the intricate weaves of its surface. Even though it barely was the size of his palm, the weight and importance of it wasn't lost on anyone who saw it. After several minutes, Amarillos eyes slowly shut as sleep slowly took him as well.


End file.
